FORCE OF HOBBIT

From: 'Alternative Press' magazine

Article by: Adam B. Vary

It's gotta be those eyes. Subtly expressive, emotionaly open and, oh yeah, frickin' huge. Elijah Wood has used his prominent peepers to great effect playing characters better known for what they don't say than for what they do. This is hardly a problem for Wood in real life. Free off a move from Mom's house in Los Angeles to his own digs in New York City - ("I'm still in wake-up-very-late-to-do-a-lot-of-nothing relaxed mode, but I've made lists of things I need to get," he says.) Wood waxed nostalgic with AP about the end of the Rings cycle, philosophic about what lies ahead for him, and fanatic about all things music. Here are the highlights.

AP: The trailer for Return of the King really hit me in the gut, like, "I don't want this to end." And that was seeing it online.

EW: Yeah. I [saw the trailer] with my sister, and it gave us goosebumps... Return Of the King was always our favorite movie to work on, mainly because of how intense it gets for all of the characters. Having seen the last house of the movie - I mean, I've never been made to cry so much by watching a piece of film. It was off the editing machine, the effects were still temp, the music was temp, but, all of that being said, it was unbelieveable and so pwoerful, and more emotional than anything I've ever seen. My body was heaving; I couldn't breath, I was crying so hard.

AP: Can you foresee a day where you know that it's over, that you're done with everything "official" surrounding The Lord Of the Rings?

EW: You know, it's been four years that we've been working on these movies, and we've become quite comfortable in the process. I mean, the idea of it coming to an end... [pauses] It's difficult to get my head around it right now. I don't think we'll fully accept what is about to happen until we actually go on this press tour and see the movie and realize that when me was goodbye to each other then, that it's saying goodbye to to each other, within the confines of this expereince, forever.

AP: I was thinking of the one day as being, in a sense, graduation day for you with this whole project.

EW: Yeah. It'll set us out. We will then be able to live our life again, it that makes any sense. Our lives won't contain this responsibility anymore. There's something scary about that, but I think it'll be great in the sense that, you know, now we can move on, look to what we want to do in the future in terms of, specifically for me, more films to work on and, hopefully, a production company, because I'd love to start producing.

AP: Now, you have to be a little jazzed that you're going to be able to play yourself in the Return of the King video game.

EW: [laughs] Very jazzed. I mean, all of the merchandising associated with the movie has been fun for, because I grew up collecting toys and playing video games. Enjoying the fruits of geekdom. To actually be in the video game, to actually be a toy - it's pretty exciting.

AP: The fruits of geekdom - I like that. I wonder, though, how have you handled being on the recieving end of geekdom?

EW: This thing I went to [in England] called Collectormania... It was a slightly overwhelming thing, thousands of people waiting in line just for you. 10 to 6 every day, I sat at a table with hordes of people coming up. It's not something you [experience] every day. I mean, I remember being there and people asking me, "Is this what your life's like now?" No, not at all. [laughs] When I go out on the street for my everyday life, I don't get that at all. I don't walk through my life every day considering that I've got all these fans. I tend to seperate that part of my life from my daily life.

AP: Well, there is this giant billboard outside my apartment window with your face on it. You can't not be reminded of your star status by that kind of thing.

EW: Well, I'm reminded of it. People approach me on the street; I'm used to those kinds of interactions, or as used to those kinds of things as you can be. And I know that the films are out them. It's always in the back of my mind, or certainly understood in a way.

AP: Is that something you want to continue at all, to be the guy with your face on the giant billboard?

EW: [laughs] No, not necessarily. I don't know if I want to be that guy. It was never interesting to me before Lord of the Rings, doing something as massive as this. I'm generally not attracted to blockbusters, because it's hard to find movies of that scale that have an interesting story and well-developed characters and emotional through-lines... I've gotten that a lot in the press, where people are curious whether it'll be Mark Hamill [the actor who played Luke Skywalker and then faded into obscurity. -Ed.] syndrome, which I've never really thought about, I guess because I'm constantly looking forward. I just feel as long as I continue to do that, I won't be Frodo in a negative way, necessarily, or stuck to Frodo forever. Other than that, I'm so proud to have been that character. I'm actually quite proud to been that character. I'm actually quite proud that I'll be associated with that movie for the rest of my life, 'cause I think they're incredible movies.

Thanks Monica! :)